United
by ttfan111robstar1
Summary: Diana and William unite in the face of Spencer being kidnapped. One-shot.


**"No language can express the power, and beauty, and heroism, and majesty of a mother's love. It shrinks not where man cowers, and grows stronger where man faints, and over wastes of worldly fortunes sends the radiance of its quenchless fidelity like a star." -Edwin Hubbell Chapin**

Diana Reid was no stranger to delusion. The paranoia, the voices, the erratic behavior. All of it was natural for her. But something else natural was her maternal instincts. They were honed to perfection. So when Spencer was in danger, she knew.

Diana burst through the door of the Kierschenbaum, Wieder and Moore law firm, a look of determination set on her face.

"May I help you?"

"I need to speak with William Reid. It's an emergency."

"He's in a meeting."

"His son is in danger!" She said, panicked.

The secretary looked at her before calling him. "There's a woman here to see you."

"I'm his wife." She clarified.

She looked at her oddly before ushering her to his office.

The minutes she sat there were some of the worst of her life. Finally, her purgatory was over and William arrived.

"Diana? What's going on?"

"Spencer is in danger."

"What? How do you know?"

She looked at him, blue eyes serious and surprisingly lucid.

"A mother knows."

William stared at her. For so long she had been institutionalized, never seeing the outside world except through her son. But he could see the clarity in her eyes. This was real. And it shook him to his core.

"Okay."

She smiled at him gratefully, but her face was sill set in worried lines. "I want you to go with me to Virginia. This is going to be serious and I don't think I'm strong enough to go alone."

He nodded. "I'll cancel my appointments."

"Okay."

Diana waited until he was done and they left together.

William stopped at his house to pack some clothes and then they raced to they airport.

"Aren't you afraid of flying?" He asked as they made their way through the airport.

"My baby is in danger." She said. "Nothing is going to stop me from saving him." William nodded solemnly, admiring her resolve. He could tell that she was scared, but was holding in her fear. For the first time in a very long time he moved to hold her hand as they boarded the plane. She blushed momentarily. For four hours they spoke quietly to one another, trying to remain calm in the face of such distress. Diana was rigid until the plane finally landed. She could breathe slightly. The rest of her breath would come when her son was safely in her arms once more.

They came out of the plane and William went to rent a car. Diana stayed beside him, quiet and contemplative. What would she do when she got there? It was a question she had to ask. She bet that she'd sound crazy about her instinct driving her to seek help from the people she distrusted the most- the government. But she'd come much too far to back out now.

The drive to the FBI headquarters was long and exhausting. As tired as she was, Diana was alert. Her baby was in terrible danger, which meant sleep was far down the list right now. They pulled into the lot and Diana dragged William behind her as she marched forward.

She opened the doors with William hot on her heels. It was Aaron Hotchner who spied the couple coming toward him. He didn't think that he'd ever seen Diana Reid so serious. He went up to her.

"Mrs. Reid. Mr. Reid." He nodded.

"Agent Hotchner, where is my son?" Diana demanded.

Hotch kept a straight face. Morgan came up not long after. Diana straightened, but her features grew soft and pleading.

"Please," she begged, "I know something's wrong. I need to help my baby. I can't handle not knowing what's happening to him." Her voice cracked, and William put his hand on her shoulder as she tried to stifle a sob.

Hotch felt pity for her. "Please, follow me." He instructed. She nodded, face white as a sheet. He ushered them into a small room with a couch and they sat together. Neither William nor Diana noticed that they were tightly gripping each other's hands.

"Approximately sixteen hours ago your son was taken by a man we were tracking. We're building a profile on him now. Hopefully we'll know more soon. I assure you, everyone on our team is doing everything possible to find your son."

Diana nodded. "Okay." Her voice was the barest whisper.

William squeezed her hands. She looked up at him, eyes filled with the purest kind of fear.

"They'll find him." He reassured her. She wanted to believe him, but was filled with doubt. She had never felt so helpless in all her life. She wanted to do something- anything to help, but all she could do was sit there. William, not knowing what else to do, put an arm around her protectively. He wished that he knew what to say, but there were no words for this.

For a long while, they all sat in silence, until Hotch excused himself from the room. Diana sighed. She just wanted her baby back. When he left, she finally succumbed to the whirlpool of emotions that were overwhelming her. She sobbed quietly as William held onto her. He felt her pain, but in a different way. He wanted the chance to make things right with his son.

After a while, she composed herself and moved closer to her husband. She felt connected to him for the first time in years.

"Thank you." She murmured.

"For what?"

"For believing me. For coming all this way. For supporting me. I couldn't have done it without you."

He smiled. "I think you could. You raised our son on your own and did an incredible job."

She grinned. "I appreciate that."

Spencer sat in a dark room, lit only by several computer screens. A masked man stood before him.

"Are you going to do what I say?" The voice was strong and authoritative.

Spencer was quiet.

The unsub flipped on a computer screen to show his mother in the sanitarium and his father in his office.

"If you don't follow my orders, both of your parents will get a visit from my associates."

Spencer trembled. "What do you want?" He whispered.

"Revenge."

"On who?"

"That's not your business." He grinned. "Now smile- your friends will be watching."

Before Diana and William could speak any further, the TV screen suddenly went fuzzy. They looked at it, then at each other in confusion. When an image finally got on screen, Diana shrieked.

It was Spencer, tied to a chair that was chained to the floor. His face was bloody, and one eye was blackened and screwed shut. There were bruises on his body, and surrender was written on his face.

It broke Diana's heart.

"My baby." She put her hand over her mouth and began to sob.

The team had gathered in the conference room and were all equally horrified at what they saw.

The voice finally came on camera wearing all black. He put his hands on Spencer's shoulders.

"Hello agents. I hope you've enjoyed my little goose chase. Let me assure you, Dr. Reid will leave here alive if you do as I ask. Release prisoner 06061994 from the Fairfax county prison. Only then will I tell you where to find your friend." He looked at the camera darkly. "You take my son, I take yours."

The screen went blank, and Diana nearly fainted. Morgan dialed Garcia immediately and put her on speaker.

"Hello hello my prince, how can I help you today?"

"I need you to do your thing, Momma."

"I am all over this and am throwing out every hack in my arsenal but this guy is crazy good with computers. He hacked us but he's pinging off of all sorts of different servers so I can't trace the connection."

"Can you pull up everything you have on prisoner 06061994 in Fairfax County Prison?"

"Absolutely."

She pulled it up. "The number belongs to a Samuel Blackwell. He was born in Fredericksburg in 1974 but his family moved to Vegas in 1980, his mom Amy died when he was seven of colon cancer, and his Dad Damian raised him by himself. He got into a few brushes with the law as a teenager for stealing, drunk and disorderly conduct, and setting a few small fires in garbage cans. In 2005 he was found guilty of murdering four prostitutes. His dad pushed for an appeal but the request was denied. He was transferred to Fairfax County Prison in 2008."

"Garcia, what can you tell us about the father?" Asked Prentiss.

"One second... Ah. Damian Blackwell came from a wealthy family who used their influence to bail him out of jail quite a few times in his younger years. He ended up cleaning up his act so that he could get into college and ended up going to MIT to major in IT."

"With a criminal record?"

"His family made a huge donation to the school. He graduated summa cum laude of his class. He started working at an IT company the following year. Two years later he married his wife, three years after they had her son."

"If this guy is our unsub, I get why he hacked the network to taunt us, but that doesn't explain why he took Reid." Morgan stated.

"Guys like him need a sense of control over everything they do. This man is too meticulous not to have a reason for taking him. He left no evidence behind, right down to the fibers in his clothing. There's something we're not seeing. A reason we've missed." Rossi mused. "Garcia?"

"Sir?"

"Can you check the major players of the court case?"

"Checking." She promised, then pulled up the records. "Okay, it looks like Ryan Bishops was the judge, Fred Williams was the prosecutor and- Oh God..."

"What is it?" Asked JJ.

"William Reid was the defense attorney."

They all went quiet. It all made sense.

"Do you have a current address for him?" Asked Hotch.

"2542 West Sygrove Lane in Langley, Virginia."

"Let's go."

When they got to the house, it was completely empty.

"He must be holding Reid at a secondary location." Said Rossi. Morgan called Penelope again.

"Garcia, is there another address for The father or son?"

"No. Nothing. I'll keep looking and hit you back."

"Let's regroup back at the office."

Diana and William stood the second the door opened.

"Have you found him?" She asked, holding onto her husband.

"No. Not yet, but we do think we know why Spencer was taken."

Diana held her breath.

"Mr. Reid, do you remember working on the case of a Samuel Blackwell in 2005?"

"I think so."

"Do you remember if anyone was particularly angry at you when you were working the case?"

"The Dad, certainly. He couldn't save his son. I did the best I could but at the end of the day it just wasn't enough."

"We think he took Spencer to get back at you for not saving his son."

Diana felt her heart drop into her stomach.

"What?" She asked, shocked. She backed away from William on instinct. She sat down, feeling like she couldn't breathe as she buried her face in her hands. Intellectually, she knew she couldn't blame him for this happening, but her heart still felt betrayal. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. It was as if her entire world was crashing down all over again.

"I'm very sorry." Hotch said quietly.

William looked to his wife, feeling more lost than ever. His son was suffering because of him. It was the worst thing he'd ever faced. He felt like the worst kind of traitor. He wanted to vomit- or worse. The guilt was all consuming and was ripping him to shreds.

Hotch left, and William put a hand on his wife's shoulder. Diana simply sobbed. She reached beneath her top and pulled out the tiny heart shaped locket that she never took off and opened it. Inside was a picture of her son, taken when he was a little boy. A tear landed on the picture, and she kissed it tenderly.

"I just want my baby back." She whispered.

"I know." He was quiet.

"He's just a boy!" She massaged her head.

"Calm down, Diane. It won't do Spencer any good if you're upset."

The words made sense, even when nothing else did. Diana tried to pull herself together.

"You're right. You're right." She took a deep breath, but the tears didn't stop. "I don't know if I can do this. I just-" She stopped, trying to breathe again. "I know he's in so much pain and I can't do anything to help him."

William didn't know what to say to that.

Time passed achingly slowly for both of them. Occasionally they remembered to speak to one another, but most of the time they were blanketed with silence.

Finally, Garcia called back. "Hey chocolate thunder, I need all hands on deck for this one. We need Reid's parents too. As fast as you can."

"You got it, Momma."

They all converged in the conference room.

"Damian Blackwell used webcams to broadcast to our screens, so I was able to backtrack it to the main server and gain control of it, which means that for a few seconds we should be able to communicate with Reid."

"Is there a way to shut the computer down?" Asked Hotch.

"Yes. There's a camera behind Reid and I was able to get footage from it. There's a control panel in front of him that I linked into, and there's a green button up in front. If he can get to it and push it, it should let down all of the protection on his computer, which means I can try and get the IP address and track him down."

"Good. But how do we get him to understand what he needs to do?"

It was Diana who figured it out. "I've got it." She turned to Garcia. "Can you help my son hear me?" She nodded. "I know exactly what to do." For the moment, they would all have to trust her.

Garcia typed furiously on her keyboard.

"You're on in three... Two... One!"

Diana began to quietly sing: "Lavender's green dilly, dilly, lavender's blue, if you love me dilly, dilly, I will love you."

Seconds later, the transmission ended.

Spencer was alone when he heard his mother's melodic voice and was immediately soothed by one of the lullabies she had sung to him as a very small child. Only there was something off about it. She didn't start with the first line of the song. He knew it had to mean something... But what? He looked around the room, trying to figure out the riddle.

Then, he saw it. The green button was flashing in front of him. That was what he had to get to. He knew it on instinct. But how? He looked down at the chair and at the chains that bound him. There was a key callously thrown on the panel. He had to get that key. He scanned the room. There had to be something he wasn't seeing. Something that could get him out.

He started by leaning forward and toppling over the chair. He wriggled forward and got closer to the key. He tried to get forward more, but the chain restricted him from going any further.

He used ramming his shoulder into the panel to try and knock the key down from it's place. To his luck, it worked, and he could unlock his chair from its spot, but was still tied up. He used his nose to push the button and then quickly retreated back to his spot before his Captor could get to him. He put the key back and locked himself back to the chair.

"Got him!" Garcia cried, and located the address. "It's a storage facility in Norfolk."

They all gathered in their vehicles and drove over to the secondary location. Two hours and forty five minutes later, they arrived. They showed a photo of Samuel Blackwell to the manager, who directed them to his storage unit. When they opened it, Damian had a gun to Spencer's head.

"Don't come any closer!" He yelled.

"Put the gun down, Damian." Morgan ordered.

"Never!"

"Put it down!"

Spencer chose then to make his move. He spun around and knocked Damian down. Hotch moved in and quickly kicked the gun away.

"Damian Blackwell, you're under arrest for kidnapping."

Spencer was untied and quickly whisked away to an ambulance for medical attention.

Diana Reid ran faster than she ever had in her life as her son was being examined by personnel. Spencer saw her, but thought it was a hallucination. It wasn't until she wrapped him in her arms that he knew she was real. He could smell her scent. It was like being home.

"Baby." She whispered, kissing his forehead. She started crying. "My sweet baby boy."

"Mommy?" He asked in confusion.

"It's alright now, sweetheart. Everything is okay." She sobbed and held him tightly.

William walked up behind her, much to Spencer's surprise.

"Dad?"

He smiled and nodded once. Confusion pooled in Spencer's eyes.

"Why are you here?" It wasn't hostile- just curious.

"Because you were in danger. Because I care about you."

Spencer didn't know what to make of that, but hugged his father anyways. In a time where it seemed like he would never see his family again, he would be grateful for what he got.

As the small family banded together, Spencer felt peace for the first time in a long while. He was loved, and that was a better healer than time. It was only because of his mother's love that he had gotten so far, and she knew he would be okay.

 **"A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all." -Washington Irving**


End file.
